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Publications

These publications showcase the significant science conducted in our Science Centers.

Filter Total Items: 16780

A geospatially resolved wetland vulnerability index: Synthesis of physical drivers

Assessing wetland vulnerability to chronic and episodic physical drivers is fundamental for establishing restoration priorities. We synthesized multiple data sets from E.B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey, to establish a wetland vulnerability metric that integrates a range of physical processes, regulatory information and physical/biophysical features. The geospatial data are based on
Authors
Zafer Defne, Alfredo Aretxabaleta, Neil K. Ganju, Tarandeep S. Kalra, Daniel Jones, Kathryn Smith

Multi-region assessment of pharmaceutical exposures and predicted effects in USA wadeable urban-gradient streams

Human-use pharmaceuticals in urban streams link aquatic-ecosystem health to human health. Pharmaceutical mixtures have been widely reported in larger streams due to historical emphasis on wastewater-treatment plant (WWTP) sources, with limited investigation of pharmaceutical exposures and potential effects in smaller headwater streams. In 2014–2017, the United States Geological Survey measured 111
Authors
Paul M. Bradley, Celeste A. Journey, Daniel T. Button, Daren Carlisle, B. J. Huffman, Sharon L. Qi, Kristin M. Romanok, Peter C. Van Metre

Passive seismic survey of sediment thickness, Dasht-e-Nawar basin, eastern Afghanistan

Exploration of water resources is needed for public supply, extraction of mineral resources, and economic development in Afghanistan. Remotely-sensed data are useful for identifying the general nature of surface sediments, however, “boots on the ground” geophysical surveys or drilling programs are needed to quantify the thickness of sediments or aquifers. The nature of such investigations presents
Authors
Thomas J. Mack

Field observations of wind waves in Upper Delaware Bay with living shorelines

Constructed oyster reefs (CORs) provide shore protections and habitats for fish and shellfish communities via wave energy attenuation. However, the processes and mechanism of CORs on wave attenuation remain unclear, thus limiting the effective assessment of CORs for shoreline protection. This paper presents results of a field investigation on wave characteristics and wave spectral variations along
Authors
Ling Zhu, Q. Chen, Hongqing Wang, William D. Capurso, L.M. Niemoczynski, Kelin Hu, Gregg Snedden

Impacts of seagrass dynamics on the coupled long-term evolution of barrier-marsh-bay systems

Seagrass provides a wide range of economically and ecologically valuable ecosystem services, with shoreline erosion control often listed as a key service, but can also alter the sediment dynamics and waves within back-barrier bays. Here we incorporate seagrass dynamics into an existing barrier-marsh exploratory model, GEOMBEST++, to examine the coupled interactions of the back-barrier bay with bot
Authors
Ian Reeves, Laura Moore, Evan Goldstein, Brad Murray, Joel A. Carr, Matthew Kirwan

Are elevation and open-water conversion of salt marshes connected?

Salt marsh assessments focus on vertical metrics such as accretion or lateral metrics such as open-water conversion, without exploration of how the dimensions are related. We exploited a novel geospatial dataset to explore how elevation is related to the unvegetated-vegetated marsh ratio (UVVR), a lateral metric, across individual marsh “units” within four estuarine-marsh systems. We find that ele
Authors
Neil K. Ganju, Zafer Defne, Sergio Fagherazzi

Uptake, metabolism, and elimination of fungicides from coated wheat seeds in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica)

Pesticides coated to the seed surface potentially pose an ecological risk to granivorous birds that consume incompletely buried or spilled seeds. To assess the toxicokinetics of seeds treated with current-use fungicides, Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) were orally dosed with commercially coated wheat seeds. Quail were exposed to metalaxyl, tebuconazole, and fludioxonil at either a low (0.07, 0.
Authors
Michael S. Gross, Thomas G. Bean, Michelle Hladik, Barnett A. Rattner, Kathryn Kuivila

Tidal wetland gross primary production across the continental United States, 2000–2019

We mapped tidal wetland gross primary production (GPP) with unprecedented detail for multiple wetland types across the continental United States (CONUS) at 16‐day intervals for the years 2000–2019. To accomplish this task, we developed the spatially explicit Blue Carbon (BC) model, which combined tidal wetland cover and field‐based eddy covariance tower data into a single Bayesian framework, and u
Authors
R.A. Feagin, I. Forbrich, T. P. Huff, J.G. Barr, J. Ruiz-Plancarte, J.D. Fuentes, R.G. Najjar, R. Vargas, A. Vazquez Lule, L. Windham-Myers, Kevin D. Kroeger, E. J. Ward, G. W. Moore, M. Leclerc, K. W. Krauss, C.L. Stagg, M. Alber, S. H. Knox, K. V. R. Schafer, T.S. Bianchi, J. A. Hutchings, H. Nahrawi, A. Noormets, B. Mitra, A. Jaimes, A.L. Hinson, Brian A. Bergamaschi, J.S. King, G. Miao

A hierarchical analysis of habitat area, connectivity, and quality on amphibian diversity across spatial scales

Habitat fragmentation can alter species distributions and lead to reduced diversity at multiple scales. Yet, the literature describing fragmentation effects on biodiversity patterns is contradictory and inconclusive, possibly because most studies fail to integrate spatial scale into experimental designs and statistical analyses. As a result, it is difficult to extrapolate the effects of fragmentat
Authors
AD Wright, Evan H. Campbell Grant, EF Zipkin

Along-strike segmentation in the northern Caribbean plate boundary zone (Hispaniola sector): Tectonic implications

The North American (NOAM) plate converges with the Caribbean (CARIB) plate at a rate of 20.0 ± 0.4 mm/yr. towards 254 ± 1°. Plate convergence is highly oblique (20–10°), resulting in a complex crustal boundary with along-strike segmentation, strain partitioning and microplate tectonics. We study the oblique convergence of the NOAM and CARIB plates between southeastern Cuba to northern Puerto Rico

Authors
A. Rodríguez-Zurrunero, J. L. Granja-Bruña, A. Muñoz-Martín, Sarah LeRoy, Uri S. ten Brink, J.M. Gorosabel-Araus, L. Gómez de la Peña, M Druet, A. Carbó- Gorosabel

Disentangling the potential effects of land-use and climate change on stream conditions

Land‐use and climate change are significantly affecting stream ecosystems, yet understanding of their long‐term impacts is hindered by the few studies that have simultaneously investigated their interaction and high variability among future projections. We modeled possible effects of a suite of 2030, 2060, and 2090 land‐use and climate scenarios on the condition of 70,772 small streams in the Ches
Authors
Kelly O. Maloney, Kevin P. Krause, Claire Buchanan, Lauren Hay, Gregory J. McCabe, Zachary M. Smith, Terry L. Sohl, John A. Young

Using thermal infrared cameras to detect avian chicks at various distances and vegetative coverages

Population monitoring of nesting waterbirds often involves frequent entries into the colony, but alternative methods such as local remotely sensed thermal imaging may help reduce disturbance while providing a cost-effective way to survey breeding populations. Such an approach can have high initial costs, however, which may have reduced the number of studies investigating functionality of paired th
Authors
Diann Prosser, Tom Collier, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Katherine Emily Dale, Carl R. Callahan, Peter C. McGowan, Edward Gaylord, Julia M. Geschke, Lucas Howell, Paul R. Marban, Saba Raman